Chapter IV: Part VI: Victory (3)

The 17th and 18th of April were perhaps the most critical days of the whole battle. The enemy had reached his greatest strength, and the British troops were not yet reinforced at any point within sight of security. On the 17th the Germans had failed in an attack on the Belgians north of Ypres, and next day they failed no less conclusively in a movement on Bethune. This gave us a breathing space, and by the morning of Sunday, the 21st, French troops had taken over the defence of Mont Kemmel, and we had been able to relieve some of the divisions which had suffered most heavily.

That day saw the end of the main crisis of the battle. Mont Kemmel was lost and regained more than once, but the enemy was quickly becoming exhausted, and his gains, even when he made them, had no longer any strategic value. By the end of April he had employed in that one area of the line thirty-five fresh divisions, and nine which had been already in action. These troops were the cream of his army, and could not be replaced. Moreover, an odd feature had appeared in the last stages of the Lys battle. In March the enemy had succeeded in piercing and dislocating the British front by a new tactical method applied with masterly boldness and precision, the method which has been described as "infiltration."[#] But as the Lys battle dragged on the Germans seemed to have forgotten these new tactics, and to have fallen back upon their old methods of mass and shock. The reason was that the new tactics could only be used with specially trained troops, and with fresh troops; they put too great a strain on weary divisions and raw levies; therefore, as the enemy's losses grew, his tactics would deteriorate in the same proportion.

[#] See p. 36.

If we take 5th May as marking the close of the Battle of the Lys, we may pause to reflect upon the marvels of the forty-five preceding days, since the enemy torrent first broke west of St. Quentin. More history had been crowded into their span than into many a year of campaigning. They had seen the great German thrust for Amiens checked in the very moment of success. They had seen the last bold push for the Channel Ports held up for days by weak divisions which bent but did not break, and finally die away with its purpose still far from achievement. In those forty-five days divisions and brigades had been more than once destroyed as units, and always their sacrifice had been the salvation of the British front. The survivors had behind them such a record of fruitful service as the whole history of the war could scarcely parallel.

*CHAPTER XII.*

*THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE.*

The First Battle of the Marne meant the frustration of Germany's main battle purpose, and the disappearance for ever of her hope of a complete and decisive victory. The Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918 was the beginning of Germany's defeat. In both battles the armies of Britain contributed to victory, but in both battles, as was right and proper, the main work was done by the French, and with them lies the chief glory.

In March Haig had been forced back to the gate of Amiens, and Foch, at last appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the Allies, had for nearly a month looked into the eyes of defeat. But slowly the tide ebbed. Foch was able not only to repel the German assaults but to nurse and strengthen his own reserves. In spite of the desperate crises on the Lys and the Aisne midsummer found him rapidly growing in strength. And as the Allies grew, so the enemy declined.

For the first time Foch had the advantage of numbers, and by June there were more than half a million Americans in France. Moreover, he had devised an answer to the German tactics, and in his new light tanks he had a weapon which would give him the advantage of surprise. But like a great and wary commander, he waited till the enemy had struck yet again, so that he might catch him on the rebound. Germany still maintained her confidence. Her press announced that unless the American army could swim or fly it would never arrive in Europe--that at the best the men of the United States were like the soldiers of a child's game, made of paper cuttings. The battle staged for July was to bring the Germans to Paris. One army was to strike east of Rheims and cut the railway from Paris to Nancy. Another was to press across the Marne. When Foch had hurried all his forces to the danger points a third army would break through at Amiens and descend on the capital from the north. Then the British would be finally cut off from the French, the French would be broken in two, and victory, complete and indubitable, would follow.

The enemy was so confident that he made no secret of his plans, and from deserters and prisoners Foch learned the main details long before the assault was launched. The French general resolved to play a bold game. He borrowed a British corps from Haig, and he thinned the Amiens section so that it was dangerously weak. His aim was to entice the enemy south of the Marne, and then in the moment of his weakness to strike at his undefended flank.

At midnight on Sunday, 14th July, Paris was awakened by the sound of great guns, and knew that the battle had begun. At 4 a.m. on the 15th the Germans crossed their parapets. The thrust beyond the Marne was at once successful, for it was no part of Foch's plan to resist too doggedly at the apex of the salient. On a front of 22 miles the Germans advanced nearly three. But the attack east of Rheims was an utter failure. Gouraud's counter-bombardment dislocated the attack before it began, and with trifling losses to himself he held the advance in his battle zone, not losing a single gun. In the west the Americans stood firm, so that the enemy salient could not be widened. These were the troops which, according to the German belief, could not land in Europe unless they became fishes or birds. The inconceivable had been brought to pass--"Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane."

In two days the German advance had reached its limit--a long narrow salient south of the Marne, representing a progress at the most of 6 miles from the old battle-front. The time had now come for Foch's counterstroke. He had resolved to thrust with all his available reserves against the weak enemy flank from Soissons southward. There, in the shelter of the woods of Villers-Cotterets, lay the army of Mangin, who first won fame at Verdun.

The morning of the 18th dawned after a night of thunderstorms and furious winds. There was no gunfire on the French side, but at 4.30, out from the shelter of the woods came a great fleet of French light tanks, and behind them on a front of 35 miles the French and American infantry crossed the parapets. Before the puzzled enemy could realize his danger they were through his first defences.

The advance of the 18th was like a great bound forward. The chief work was done by Mangin's left wing, which at half-past 10 in the morning held the crown of the Montagne de Paris, on the edge of Soissons. All down the line the Allies succeeded. Sixteen thousand prisoners fell to them and some 50 guns, and at one point Mangin had advanced as much as 8 miles. Foch had narrowed the German salient, crumpled its western flank, and destroyed its communications. He had wrested the initiative from the Germans and brought their last offensive to a dismal close.

He had done more, though at the time no eye could pierce the future and read the full implications of his victory. Moments of high crisis slip past unnoticed. It is only the historian in later years who can point to a half-hour in a crowded day and say that then was decided the fate of a cause or a people. As the wounded trickled back through the tossing woods of Villers-Cotterets, spectators noted a strange exaltation in their faces. When the news reached Paris the city breathed a relief which was scarcely justified with the enemy still so strongly posted at her gates. But the instinct was right. The decisive blow had been struck. When the Allies breasted the Montagne de Paris that July morning they had, without knowing it, won the Second Battle of the Marne, and with it the war. Four months earlier Ludendorff had stood as the apparent dictator of Europe; four months later he and his master were fleeing to a foreign exile.

*CHAPTER XIII.*

*THE BEGINNING OF THE END.*

The attack on the German flank on the morning of 18th July had put an end to the enemy's hope of an advance on Paris, and had forced him to assume the defensive. But in this he still persevered. His plan now was to defend the line of the Aisne, in the hope that the French would break their teeth on it, and that the battle would then decline into a fruitless struggle for a few miles of trench, like the other actions of the long siege warfare. He hoped in vain. Foch had no mind to waste a single hour in operations which were not vital. As early as 23rd July the Allies' great scheme for the autumn battles was framed, and on Thursday, 8th August, Sir Douglas Haig opened the attack.

Foch's plan was to give the enemy no rest. He was like a swordsman who avoids his antagonist's sledge-hammer blows, who with lithe blade pinks him again and again and draws much blood, who baffles and confuses him, till the crushing weight of his opponent has been worn down by his own trained and elastic strength. It was his business to wear down the enemy continuously and methodically by a series of attacks on limited fronts, aiming at strictly limited objectives, and to keep him ceaselessly harassed over the whole battle-ground. The campaign had developed like a masterly game of chess. From 21st March to 18th July Foch had stood patiently on the defensive. From 18th July to 8th August he had won back his freedom of action, cleared his main communications, and hopelessly dislocated the German plan. From 8th August to 26th September it was his task to crumble the enemy's front, destroy the last remnant of his reserves, force him beyond all his prepared defences, and make ready for the final battle which would give victory.

On 8th August Haig's striking force was the British Fourth Army, under Sir Henry Rawlinson, and part of the French First Army, under General Debeney. The front of attack was east of Amiens, astride the valleys of the Avre, the Luce, and the Somme. Haig's immediate aim was to free his communications--that is, to push the enemy out of range of the main railways behind his front--as the French had done on the Marne, and to this end the enemy must be driven out of range of Amiens.

The preparations for the attack were most cunningly concealed, and infinite pains were taken to make the surprise complete. By an elaborate piece of "camouflage" the enemy was induced to believe that an attack in Flanders was preparing. The Canadians, who, along with the Australians, were the principal British attacking troops, had been secretly brought down from the north a few days before, and only came into line just before the battle. For the action Sir Douglas Haig had accumulated not less than 400 Tanks, many of the light "whippet" type and most of the newest pattern. He was to employ Foch's tactics in their purest form. There was to be no artillery bombardment except just at the moment of advance; the ground had been perfectly reconnoitred from the air; the objectives to be secured were ambitious but strictly defined; and the troops to be used were among the _corps d'elite_ of the army.

In the first week of August much rain fell, and on the night of the 7th a heavy mist hung over the ground. Just before daybreak on Thursday the 8th an intense bombardment was opened, so intense that the enemy's defences disappeared as if wiped out by a sponge. Four minutes later the bombardment stopped, and the Tanks and infantry moved forward. Rawlinson advanced at 4.20 a.m.; Debeney some twenty minutes later.

Success was immediate and continuous. The Canadians and Australians, pressing along the two great Roman highways to St. Quentin and Roye, marched steadily towards their final objectives, and these they reached long before noon. The enemy was completely surprised. At one place the Tanks captured an entire regimental mess at breakfast. At another the whole staff of a division was seized. In some villages the Germans were taken in their billets before they knew what had happened, and parties of the enemy were actually made prisoners while working in the harvest field. The Canadian cavalry passed through the infantry and captured a train on the railway line near Chaulnes. Indeed, that day the whole British cavalry performed miracles, advancing 23 miles from their point of concentration.

This success at the beginning of the last battle of the war was due partly to the brilliant tactical surprise, partly to the high efficiency of the new Tanks, and also in some degree to the evident deterioration in the quality of the German infantry in that part of the front. The enemy machine-gunners did not display their old tenacity. The Allied casualties were extraordinarily small, one Canadian division, which was in the heart of the battle, losing only 100 men. It was very clear that the fortitude of the German line was ebbing, and this more than any other fact disturbed the minds of its commanders. Ludendorff has recorded in his Memoirs that after the battle of 8th August he realized that Germany was beaten.

The Tanks played a brilliant and dramatic part in the day's success. One Tank captured a village single-handed, and its wary commander solemnly demanded a receipt for the village before he handed it over to the Australians. But the chief performance of the day was that of the "whippet" Tank "Musical Box," commanded by Lieutenant C. B. Arnold, and carrying as crew Gunner Ribbans and Driver Carney. This Tank started off at 4.20 a.m. in company with the others, and when she had advanced the better part of 2 miles discovered herself to be the leading machine, all the others having been ditched. She came under direct shell-fire from a German field battery, and turned off to the left, ran diagonally across the front of the battery at a distance of 600 yards, and fired at it with both her guns. The battery replied with eight rounds, fortunately all misses, and the Tank now managed to get to the battery's rear under cover of a belt of trees. The gunners attempted to get away, but "Musical Box" accounted for them all.

If a Tank can be said to go mad, this Tank now performed that feat. She started off due east straight for Germany, shooting down Germans whenever she saw them. The Australian infantry were following her, and for some time she was also in touch with two British cavalry patrols. Seeing a party of the enemy in a field of corn, she charged down upon them, killing three or four. She found a patrol of our cavalry dismounted and in trouble with some Germans on a railway bridge, so she made for the bridge and dispersed the Germans. She moved still farther east, and approached a small valley marked on Lieutenant Arnold's map as containing German hutments. As she entered the valley the Germans were seen packing their kits and beginning to move, and "Musical Box" opened fire. There was a general flight, but this did not prevent her guns from accounting for a considerable number. She now turned a little to the left across open country, firing at retreating German infantry at ranges of from 200 to 600 yards, and being heavily fired on by rifles and machine-guns in reply. Unfortunately she was carrying petrol tins on her roof, and these were perforated by the hail of bullets, so that the petrol ran all over the cab. The great heat from her engines and guns, which had been in action for nine or ten hours, made it necessary at this point for the crew to breathe through their box-respirators.

It was now about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and "Musical Box" was still moving east, shooting at anything she could see, from motor transport to marching infantry, and getting heavily peppered in return. At last Lieutenant Arnold was compelled to withdraw the forward gun. The fumes and the heat were stifling, but the crew managed to endure it till suddenly the gallant "Musical Box" was struck by two heavy shells following close one upon the other, and the cab burst into flames. Carney and Ribbans reached the door and collapsed. Lieutenant Arnold was almost overcome, but managed to get the door open and fall out upon the ground. He was then able to drag out the other two men. Burning petrol was running on to the ground where they were lying, and the clothing of all three was on fire. They struggled to get away from the petrol, and while doing so Carney received his death wound. The enemy were now approaching from all quarters, and, having been thoroughly scared, they not unnaturally treated the two survivors somewhat roughly.

Lieutenant Arnold and Gunner Ribbans, badly burned, incredibly dirty, half-suffocated, and fainting with fatigue, were led off into captivity, after having completed such an Odyssey of devastation as perhaps befell no other two men in the war.

*CHAPTER XIV.*

*THE AUSTRALIANS AT MONT ST. QUENTIN.*

Close to the spot where the South Africans made their great stand in the retreat of March 1918, it fell to the lot of troops from another of our Dominions to perform an almost miraculous exploit in the advance eastward to victory. By 30th August, as we have seen, the tide had fully turned. All the British armies were pressing back the enemy over the old Somme battlefield, and that enemy was struggling desperately to hold on to key positions long enough to enable him to retire in good order to the Hindenburg Line, where he hoped to stand on the defence over the winter. But these key positions were now being rushed too fast to permit of an orderly retreat, and so the Hindenburg defences proved of no avail, and before the end of October the Germans were a defeated army.

Of all the key positions the strongest was that of Mont St. Quentin, which commanded the old town of Peronne on the north. Peronne, as readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember, was the scene of some of the adventures of Quentin Durward. It had fallen into British hands in March 1917, when the Germans first retired to the Hindenburg Line. It had been lost in the great enemy onslaught of the following March. It was a very strong place, defended on the south and west by the links of the marshy Somme, and on the north by the low ridge called Mont St. Quentin, which provided superb gun positions. The place was held by one of the best of the German Divisions brought up from the reserve, the 2nd Prussian Guards. Their orders were to maintain it at all costs, for unless Mont St. Quentin was held, Peronne would fall, and if Peronne fell it would be a very battered remnant that would struggle back to the main Hindenburg Line.

Sir Henry Rawlinson, the commander of the British Fourth Army, believed that the fight for Peronne would be long and difficult, and he entrusted it to the Australian Corps, who were unsurpassed for their fighting quality by any army in the world. This corps now performed the impossible, and in a single day's fighting, and with few losses, swept the enemy from Mont St. Quentin, took Peronne, and shook the German II. Army to its foundations. Sir Henry Rawlinson has described their exploit as the finest single action in the war.

No man who once saw the Australians in action could ever forget them. In the famous landing at Gallipoli, in a dozen desperate fights in that peninsula, in the fight for Pozieres during the First Battle of the Somme, at the Third Battle of Ypres, and in the action at Villers-Bretonneux just before the final advance, they had shown themselves incomparable in their fury of assault and in reckless personal valour. They had more than gallantry; they had a perfect discipline and a perfect coolness. As types of physical perfection they have probably not been matched since the time of the ancient Greeks--these long, lean men, with their slow, quiet voices, and often the shadows of great fatigue around the deep-set, far-sighted eyes.

Their first task was to cross the Somme--no easy task, since Mont St. Quentin commanded every reach of it. Sir John Monash, the Australian commander, decided not to attempt to force the river south of the town; but in the darkness of night a brigade of the 2nd Australian Division managed to cross and seize the German trenches at Clery. This placed two of the three Australian Divisions of attack on the east of the river, directly under the ridge of St. Quentin. General Rawlinson visited the Australian headquarters that evening, and whetted their keenness by frankly expressing his disbelief in their success on the morrow. "You think you are going to take Mont St. Quentin with three battalions! What presumption! However, I don't think I ought to stop you. Go ahead and try."

Very early on the morning of 31st August the Australian 2nd Division lay just under the ridge, with the 3rd Division on its left, and on its right the 5th Division south of the Somme. The plan was that the 2nd Division should take Mont St. Quentin, while the 3rd Division completed the capture of the high ground towards Bouchavesnes on the north, and the 5th Division passed troops across the river for the assault on Peronne. There were no Tanks to assist the infantry, and very few heavy guns, for the men had marched far ahead of the artillery.

At 5 a.m. on the 31st, while the morning was still quite dark, the 5th Brigade of the 2nd Division opened the attack. It advanced straight up the hill with the bayonet, and at 8 a.m. Sir John Monash was able to report to General Rawlinson that his men had obtained a footing on Mont St. Quentin. All day the heroic brigade beat off desperate counter-attacks, and by nightfall it still maintained its position.

Meantime the 14th Brigade from the 5th Division crossed the Somme, and passed through the 2nd Division area for the assault on Peronne, for Monash had determined that the right course was to take the defences of the town by a rush while they were still being organized by the enemy. The 14th Brigade had a march of 7 miles before it could be in position to deploy for the attack. It was ten hours on the road, and reached its jumping-off ground in the darkness of the night. There it had on its left the 6th Brigade of the 2nd Division, whose business was to complete the capture of Mont St. Quentin.

The final success came on 1st September. The 6th Brigade advanced well over the crest of Mont St. Quentin, and that fortress was now wholly in British hands. The 14th Brigade took Peronne. Ever since the attack of 8th August it had been the misfortune of that brigade to be the reserve unit of its Division, and therefore it had not shared in any serious fighting; but this day it made up for lost opportunities. "You see," said one company commander, "we had been trying to buy a fight off the other fellows for a matter of three weeks, and that day we got what we had been looking for, so we made the most of it."

Meantime the 3rd Division, on the left, completed the capture of the Bouchavesnes spur. By 3rd September the whole of the Peronne area was in British hands, and the enemy was in headlong retreat. It was clear that he could find no resting-place short of the main Hindenburg Line, and a month later Sir Douglas Haig proved that not even in that position was there an abiding sanctuary.

The actual capture of Mont St. Quentin was achieved by two brigades. It was a straightforward fight with the bayonet--the cream of the British Army against the cream of the enemy. For so resounding a success it was singularly economical of human life; on the hill itself nearly 2,000 prisoners were taken at the expense of some 200 Australian casualties.

*CHAPTER XV.*

*THE LAST BATTLE.*

By the 25th of September the German armies were back on the great line devised by Hindenburg in the autumn of 1916. The one chance left to them was to hold out there during the winter, in the hope that they might be able to bargain with the Allies. If the Allies attacked, there were two sections which Ludendorff viewed with anxiety. One was his left wing on the Meuse, where, if the Allies broke through, the Hindenburg Line would be turned on its flank. The other was the German centre from Douai to St. Quentin, the main Hindenburg Line, which was not only the fortress where he hoped to pass the winter, but the one protection of the great railway from Lille by Valenciennes to Mezieres, on which his whole position depended. He therefore laboured to keep his left and centre as strong as possible; for, in spite of his experience in August and September, he could not conceive the possibility of an assault on every section.

For Foch this was to be the crowning battle of the war. If he could break through the German centre, and at the same time turn the German left, defeat would stare the enemy in the face, and there would be victory long before Christmas. If the Americans on the Meuse succeeded, they would make retreat imperative; but if Haig in the centre succeeded, he would make retreat impossible, and disaster must follow. The British were assigned the most difficult part. They had to attack in the area where the enemy defences were most highly organized and his forces strongest. If the Hindenburg Line held, the German courage might yet recover, and a new era of resistance begin. Haig's armies had already borne the heaviest share of the summer fighting, and every division had been sorely tried. Yet the attempt must be made, for it was the essential part of the whole strategy, and the measure of difficulty was the measure of the honour in which Foch held the fighting qualities of his British allies.

In deciding to make the attack, and to break the Hindenburg Line at one blow, Sir Douglas Haig stood alone. So difficult seemed the operation that the British Government were in the gravest doubts, and left the burden of responsibility upon the Commander-in-Chief. Even the French generals hesitated. The movement was undertaken on Sir Douglas Haig's initiative; he bore the whole burden of it; and therefore to him belongs the main credit of what was destined to be one of the decisive actions of the war.

Foch began on his right flank, and on 26th September the American army attacked on the Meuse. Next day, the 27th, Haig struck towards Cambrai. The two main defences of the Hindenburg Line were the Canal du Nord, and, behind it, the Scheldt Canal, the latter forming the outwork of the system. The principal German trenches were on the east bank; but on the west bank lay advanced posts, skilfully placed. In one section the canal passed through a tunnel 6,000 yards long, connected by shafts with the trenches above. In another part it lay in a deep cutting, the sides of which were honeycombed with dug-outs. The fortified zone was from 5 to 7 miles wide, and culminated on the east in what was known as the Beaurevoir Line, strongly wired double-trench lines of the same type as those on the western side.

On the 27th the Third Army under Byng, and the First Army under Horne, attacked on the left, crossed the Canal du Nord, and by the evening had reached the edge of the Scheldt Canal. Next day that canal had been partially crossed, and Cambrai was menaced from two sides. These events roused acute apprehension in the mind of the German Staff. The crossing of the Canal du Nord by Tanks on the backs of Tanks, and the passing of the Scheldt Canal at its northern end, had shaken their confidence in the outer Hindenburg defences. Next day, the 29th, came Haig's crowning blow. He struck at the strongest part, and it crumbled before him.

The attack was made by Rawlinson's Fourth Army. For two days his guns had not been silent; the enemy's garrisons were forced into tunnels and deep dug-outs, and the transport of food and ammunition was made all but impossible. The Germans were, therefore, in a state of confusion and fatigue when Haig attacked at 10 minutes to 6 on the morning of Sunday, the 29th.

This action was one of the greatest of the campaign, whether we regard the difficulties to be faced or the strategic value of the gains. Ludendorff was fighting for his last hope, and he had warned his men accordingly. One captured order reminded his troops that "Our present position is our winter position." Another ran: "There can be no question of going back a single step further. We must show the British, French, and Americans that any further attacks on the Hindenburg Line will be utterly broken, and that that Line is an impregnable rampart, with the result that the Entente Powers will condescend to consider the terms of peace which it is absolutely necessary for us to have before we can end the war." Germany was already busy with peace proposals, and she had nothing to bargain with except these defences in the West.

The key of the position was the angle of the Scheldt Canal where it bent east, with the village of Bellenglise in its bend, for if the canal were forced there the defences on either side would be turned. The work was entrusted to the 46th Division of North Midland Territorials, which had a long and brilliant record in the war. Theirs was an amazing performance. The canal before them was some 50 to 60 feet wide, the water in some parts being as much as 10 feet deep. and in others a mere trickle. It was a morning of thick fog when behind the tornado of the barrage the Midlanders, carrying life-belts and mats and rafts, advanced to the attack. Since parts of the canal were impassable, the crossing had to be made on a narrow front. Swimming or wading, and in some cases using foot-bridges which the enemy had left undestroyed, they passed the canal west and north of Bellenglise, swarmed up the farther bank, and took the German trenches beyond. Then, fanning out, they attacked in rear the positions to the south, capturing many batteries still in action. That day this one Division took over 4,000 prisoners and 70 guns.

It was the same everywhere else on the British front. The main Hindenburg defences had been breached, and all next day the Fourth Army pressed through the gap. The greatest battle of the war was now approaching its climax, and the whole 250 miles of front, from the Meuse to the sea, were ablaze. Ludendorff could not have withdrawn even if he had wished it. By 7th October Haig had broken through all the front Hindenburg Line, and was pressing upon the last defences. The time was therefore ripe for a great movement on the broadest possible front, which would destroy the whole zone. For, in the words of the official dispatch, "Nothing but the natural obstacles of a wooded and well-watered country lay between our armies and Maubeuge."

The great movement was begun by Haig early on Tuesday, 8th October. It was a wild, wet, autumn morning when Byng at 4.30 and Rawlinson at 5.10 attacked on a 17-mile front, while a French army extended the battle 4 miles farther south. The enemy resisted desperately, but nothing could stay the rush of the Allied infantry and the deadly penetration of their Tanks. By the evening Haig had advanced between 3 and 4 miles, and the Hindenburg zone was no more. The enemy was falling back to the Oise and the Selle, and for the moment his organization had been broken. Every road converging on Le Cateau was blocked with transport and troops, and our cavalry were galloping eastward to confuse the retreat.

Sir Douglas Haig's battle, which ended on the 10th October, may be considered the determining action in the campaign, and it has been described by Foch as "a classic example of military art." It had no defect either of plan or of execution. The enemy was fairly and clearly defeated in a field action. Foch had played on the whole front a crescendo of deadly music, and the enemy's strategic position was now so desperate that no local stand could save him. There was talk at the time of a German retreat to the Meuse. but it was an idle dream. Long before her broken divisions could reach that river Germany would be upon her knees.

*PART III.*

*THE "SIDE SHOWS."*

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*THE LANDING AT GALLIPOLI.*

Early in 1915 it seemed to the British Government that, since there were no longer any flanks to be turned on the Western front, the lines in France and Flanders were settling down to a siege and a war of positions. They therefore looked elsewhere for some more promising area of battle, since, if the front door of a fortress is barred, there may be an entrance by a back door. The place which promised best was the narrow straits called the Dardanelles, which led from the AEgean into the Sea of Marmora, and so to Constantinople. There full use could be made of the British fleet. The capture of the Straits would involve the fall of the capital, and this might drive Turkey out of the war. Success there would bring over to our side the hesitating Balkan neutral states. It would open the road for Russia to import munitions of war, and to export her accumulated supplies of wheat. Lastly, Russia was being hard pressed, and had appealed to the Western Allies for aid, and her request could not be refused.

Accordingly, it was decided to make an attempt upon the Dardanelles. The first effort was made by ships alone. But the Turks had powerful forts on both sides of the straits which could not be destroyed by naval guns. It was clear that the Dardanelles could not be opened until the Gallipoli Peninsula on the north side was captured. Unfortunately, the naval attack had forewarned the enemy, and he had enormously strengthened his position on the Gallipoli heights.

The forces put at Sir Ian Hamilton's disposal for the enterprise were the 29th Division of regulars and Territorials, two divisions from Australia and New Zealand, the Royal Naval Division, and a French brigade. Of these troops only the 29th Division had had any experience in war. Sir Ian Hamilton decided that the only possible landing-places were the beaches at the south-west end of the Peninsula, and another beach at Gaba Tepe, some distance up the northern side. His aim was, by landing at the point, to fight his way to Krithia village, and carry the Achi Baba ridge, while the Australians from Gaba Tepe could turn the right wing of the Turkish defence. Once the Achi Baba heights were captured the Straits would be ours.

The day originally fixed for the attempt was 23rd April. But on the 20th a storm rose which for forty-eight hours lashed the AEgean. On the 23rd it abated, and that afternoon the first of the black transports began to move out of Mudros harbour. Next day the rest of the force followed, all in wild spirits for this venture into the unknown. They recalled to one spectator the Athenians departing for the Sicilian expedition, when the galleys out of sheer light-heartedness raced each other to AEgina.

The morning of Sunday, the 25th, was one of those which delight the traveller in April in the AEgean. A light mist fills the air before dawn, but it disappears with the sun, and all day there are clear skies, still seas, and the fresh, invigorating warmth of spring. At the butt end of Gallipoli there are five little beaches, originally nameless, but now for all time to be known by the letters affixed to them on the war maps of the British Army. Beginning from the left, there is Beach Y, and, a little south of it, Beach X. Rounding Cape Tekke, we reach Beach W, where a narrow valley opens between the headlands of Tekke and Helles. Here there is a broad semicircular stretch of sand. South of Helles is Beach V, a place of the same configuration as Beach W, but unpleasantly commanded by the castle and village of Sedd-el-Bahr at its southern end. Lastly, inside the Straits, on the east side of Morto Bay, is Beach S, close to the point of Eski Hissarlik. The landing at Gaba Tepe, on the north side of the peninsula, was entrusted to the Australian and New Zealand troops; that at the Helles beaches to the 29th Division, with some units of the Naval Division. It was arranged that simultaneously the French should land on the Asiatic shore at Kum Kale, to prevent the Turkish batteries from being brought into action against our men at Beaches V and S.

Let us assume that an aeroplane enabled us to move up and down the shores of the peninsula and observe the progress of the different landings. About one in the morning the ships arrive at a point 5 miles from the Gallipoli shores. At 1.20 boats are lowered, and the troops line up on the decks. Then they embark in the flotillas, and steam pinnaces begin to tow them shorewards in the hazy half-light before dawn. The Australians destined for Gaba Tepe are carried in destroyers which take them close in to the shore.

The operations are timed so that the troops reach the beaches at daybreak. Slowly and very quietly the boats and destroyers steal towards the land. A little before 5 an enemy's searchlight flares out. The boats are now in shallow water under the Gaba Tepe cliffs, and the men are leaping ashore. Then comes a blaze of rifle-fire from the Turkish trenches on the beach, and the men who have landed charge them with the bayonet. The whole cliff seems to leap into light, for everywhere trenches and caverns have been dug in the slopes. The fire falls most heavily on the men still in the boats, who have the difficult task of waiting as the slow minutes bring them shoreward.

The Australians do not linger. They carry the lines on the beach with cold steel, and find themselves looking up at a steep cliff a hundred feet high. In open order they dive into the scrub, and scramble up the loose yellow rocks. By a fortunate accident their landing is farther north than was intended, just under the cliffs of Sari Bair. At Gaba Tepe the long slope would have given the enemy a great advantage in defence; but here there is only the 40-foot beach and then the cliffs. He who knows the AEgean in April will remember those fringed sea walls and bare brown slopes. From a distance they look as arid as the Syrian desert, but when the traveller draws near he finds a paradise of curious and beautiful flowers--anemone, grape hyacinth, rock rose, asphodel, and amaryllis. Up this rock garden the Australians race, among the purple cistus and the matted creepers and the thickets of myrtle. They have left their packs at the foot, and scale the bluffs like chamois. It is an achievement to rank with Wolfe's escalade of the Heights of Abraham. Presently they are at the top, and come under the main Turkish fire. But the ground gives good cover, and they set about entrenching the crest of the cliffs to cover the boats' landing. This is the position at Sari Bair at 7 a.m.

As we journey down the coast we come next to Beach Y. There at 7 a.m. all is going well. The 1st King's Own Scottish Borderers and the Plymouth battalion of the Naval Division, landing at a place which the enemy thought wholly impracticable, have without difficulty reached the top of the cliffs. At Beach X things are even better. The _Swiftsure_ has plastered the high ground with shells, and the landing ship, the _Implacable_, has anchored close to the shore in six fathoms of water. With scarcely a casualty the 2nd Royal Fusiliers have gained the cliff line.

There has been a harder fight at Beach W, between Tekke and Helles, where the sands are broader. The shore has been trenched throughout, and wired and mined almost to the water's edge, and in the scrub behind are hidden the Turkish snipers. Though our ships have bombarded the shore for three-quarters of an hour, they cannot clear out the enemy, and do not seem to have made much impression on the wire entanglements. The first troops have landed to the right under the cliffs of Cape Helles, and have reached the top, while a party on the left has scaled Cape Tekke. But the men of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers who landed on the shore itself have had a fiery trial. They suffered heavily while still on the water, and on landing came up against unbroken lines of wire, while snipers and concealed machine-guns rained death on them. Here we have had heavy losses, and at 7 a.m. the landing has not yet succeeded.

The case is more desperate still at Beach V, under Sedd-el-Bahr. Here, as at Beach W, there are a stretch of sand, a scrubby valley, and flanking cliffs. It is the strongest of the Turkish positions, and troops landing in boats are exposed to every type of converging fire. A curious expedient has been tried. A collier, the _River Clyde_, with 2,000 men of the 2nd Hampshires, 1st Dublin Fusiliers, and 1st Munster Fusiliers on board, and eight boat-loads towed by steam pinnaces, approached close to the shore. The boat-loads--the rest of the Dublin Fusiliers--suffered horribly, for when they dashed through the shallows to the beach they were pinned to the ground by fire. Three lines of wire entanglements had to be forced, and a network of trenches. A bank of sand, 5 or 6 feet high, runs at the back, and under its cover the survivors have taken shelter. In the steel side of the ship doors have been cut, which open and disgorge men into the lighters alongside, like some new Horse of Troy. But a tornado of shot and shell rained on her, and of the gallant men who leaped from the lighters to the reef and from the reef to the sea, very few reached the land. Those who did have joined their fellows lying flat under the sand-bank on that beach of death. At Beach S, in Morto Bay, all has gone well. Seven hundred men of the 2nd South Wales Borderers have been landed from trawlers, and have established themselves on the cliff tops at the place called De Totts Battery.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*THE LANDING AT GALLIPOLI (*_*continued*_*).*

Let us go back to Sari Bair and look at the position at noonday. We are prospering there, for more than 10,000 men are now ashore, and the work of disembarking guns and stores goes on steadily, though the fire from inland is still deadly. We see a proof of it in a boat full of dead men which rocks idly in the surf. The great warships from the sea send their heavy shells against the Turkish lines, sea-planes are "spotting" for them, and wireless stations are being erected on the beach. Firing from the ships is not easy, for the morning sun shines right in the eyes of the gunners. The Royal Engineers are making roads up the cliff, and supplies are climbing steadily to our firing line. On the turf of the cliff top our men are entrenched, and are working their way forward.

Unfortunately the zeal of the Australians has outrun their discretion, and some of them have pushed on too far. They have crossed three ridges, and have got to a fourth ridge within sight of the Straits. In that broken country such an advance is certain death, and the rash attack has been checked with heavy losses. The wounded are being brought in, and it is no light task getting them down the cliffs on stretchers, and across the beach and the bullet-splashed sea to the warships. Remember that we are holding a position which is terribly conspicuous to the enemy, and all our ammunition and water and food have to be dragged up these breakneck cliffs. Still, the first round has been won, Indian troops are being landed in support, and we are firmly placed at Sari Bair.

As we move down the coast we find that all goes well at Beach X, and that the troops there are working their way forward, but that at Beach Y the Scottish Borderers are being heavily counter-attacked and are making little progress. The _Implacable_ has knocked out of action a Turkish battery at Krithia which gave much annoyance to our men at Beach X. At Beach W we have improved our position. We have cleared the beach and driven the Turks out of the scrub at the valley foot, and the work of disembarking men and stores is proceeding. Our right wing--the 4th Worcesters--is working round by the cliffs above Cape Helles to enfilade the enemy who are holding Beach V, where our men are still in deadly jeopardy.

The scene at Beach V is strange and terrible. From the deep water the _Cornwallis_ and the _Albion_ are bombarding the enemy at Sedd-el-Bahr, and the 15-inch shells from the _Queen Elizabeth_ are screaming overhead. The Trojan Horse is still lying bow on against the reefs, with her men unable to move, and the Turkish howitzers playing on her. If a man shows his head he is picked off by sharpshooters. The troops we have landed lie flat on the beach under cover of the sand ridge, unable to advance or retreat, and under a steady tornado of fire. At Beach S things are satisfactory.

Meantime the French landing at Kum Kale has achieved its purpose. Originally timed for 6 a.m., it did not take place till 9.30. They had a skirmish with the Turks, partly on the height at Kum Kale, and partly on the Trojan plain. Then they advanced along the swell of ground near the coast as far as Yeni Shehr. Next evening they re-embarked and joined our right wing at Beach S. They took 500 prisoners, and could have taken more had there been room for them in the boats. The Turk, who showed himself a dauntless fighter, surrendered with great good-humour when the game was up. He had no crusading zeal in the business.

As darkness fell on that loud Sabbath, the minds of the Allied Staff may well have been anxious. We had gained a footing, but no more, and it was but a precarious lodgment. The complexity and strength of the enemy's defence far surpassed our expectation. He had tunnelled the cliffs, and created a wonderful and intricate trench system, which took full advantage of the natural strength of the ground. The fire from our leviathans on the deep was no more effective against his entrenched positions than it had been against the forts of the Straits.

Let us resume our tour of the beaches about 10 o'clock on the morning of the 26th. At Sari Bair the Australians are facing a counter-attack. It lasts for two hours, and is met by a great bombardment from our ships. The end comes when, about noon, the Australians and New Zealanders advance with the bayonet, and drive back the enemy. But all that day there is no rest for our troops, who are perfecting their trenches under a deluge of shrapnel. Their flanks are indifferently secured, and they have but the one landing-place behind them, from which their front line is scarcely 1,000 yards distant. They are still clinging precariously to the coast scarp.

At Beach Y things have gone badly. Our men there had advanced during the Sunday afternoon, and had been outflanked and driven back to the cliff edge. The Scottish Borderers lost their commanding officer and more than half their men. It was decided to re-embark and move the troops to Beach X, and as we pass the retreat is going on successfully under cover of the ship's fire. At Beach X there has been a hard struggle. Last night we were strongly attacked there, and driven to the very edge of the cliffs, where we hung on in rough shelter trenches. This morning we are advancing again, and making some way.

At Beach W, too, there has been a counter-attack. Yesterday afternoon our right wing there, which tried to relieve the position on Beach V by an enfilading attack on the enemy, got among wire, and was driven back. During the night the Turks came on in force, and we were compelled to fling our beach parties into the firing line, bluejackets and sappers armed with whatever weapons they could find. This morning the situation is easier, we have landed more troops, and are preparing to move forward.

At Beach V the landing is still in its first stage. Men are still sheltering on the deadly beach behind the sandbank. We have gained some positions among the ruins which were once Sedd-el-Bahr, but not enough to allow us to proceed. Even as we look a final effort is beginning, in which the Dublin Fusiliers and the Munster Fusiliers distinguish themselves, though it is hard to select any for special praise among the splendid battalions of the 29th Division. It continues all morning, most gallantly directed till he fell by Lieutenant-Colonel Doughty-Wylie of the Headquarters Staff, and about 2 p.m. it is successful. The main Turkish trenches are carried, the debris of the castle and village are cleared, and the enemy is in retreat. The landing can now go forward, and the men, who for thirty-two hours have been huddled behind the sandbank, enduring torments of thirst and a nerve-racking fire, can move their cramped limbs and join their comrades.

By the morning of Tuesday, the 27th, all the beaches--except Beach Y, which had been relinquished--were in working order, and the advance could proceed. Next morning it began, and by the evening of the 28th we had securely won the butt of the peninsula, and our front ran from 3 miles north-west of Cape Tekke to a mile north of Eski Hissarlik.

So ended the opening stage of the Gallipoli campaign--the Battle of the Landing. It was a fight without a precedent. There had been landings--such as Abercromby's at Aboukir and Wolfe's at the cove west of Louisburg--fiercely contested landings, in our history, but none on a scale like this. Sixty thousand men, backed by the most powerful navy in the world, attacked a shore which nature seemed to have made impregnable, and which was held by not inferior numbers of the enemy, in positions prepared for months, and supported by the latest modern artillery. The mere problem of transport was sufficient to deter the boldest. Every rule of war was set at nought. On paper the thing was impossible, as the Turkish army orders announced. According to the text-books no man should have left the beaches alive. We were fighting against a gallant enemy who was at his best in defence and in this unorthodox type of battle. That our audacity succeeded was due to the unsurpassable fighting quality of our men--the Regulars and Territorials of the 29th Division, the Naval Division, and not least to the dash and doggedness of the Australasian corps. The Gallipoli campaign was to end in failure, but, whatever be our judgment on its policy or its consequences, the Battle of the Landing must be acclaimed as a marvellous, an unparalleled feat of arms.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

*THE DEPARTURE FROM GALLIPOLI.*